02-24-2005, 12:06 AM | #1 (permalink) |
Addict
Location: Australia
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we, as humans
here is a thought i had last night...
we, as humans, are 'supposdely ' the smarts creatures on this planet. if that is the case, why is it that the only thing we are good at is killing each other? wouldnt you think that being the smartest creatures on this planet we would be able to be better at something nay anything else other than killing each other... well thats my thoughts... discuss..
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02-24-2005, 12:27 AM | #2 (permalink) |
Tilted
Location: Inside an econobox
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I haven't killed anybody yet- does that make me bad at being a human?
One might also think we'd be better at grammar and spelling, too (forgive me if you're one of those dyslexic typers). thats my thoughts...
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I can has furburger? |
02-24-2005, 12:59 AM | #3 (permalink) | |
Desert Rat
Location: Arizona
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It's human nature. Self preservation and the need to procreate is what drives us. That's why we have weapons that can wipe out entire cities and porn on demand. If we could some how get rid of the instinct that's apparently hard coded into each one of us, we would probably be living much more utopian lives.
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"This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V." - V |
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02-24-2005, 01:51 AM | #5 (permalink) |
Psycho
Location: Above you
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Humans are both destructive and constructive creatures, we need both to thrive. We are not the only creature on earth that kills it's own kind, but we are the only ones smart enought to create ways of doing it quicker and better than any other being. We are also smart enough to realize if we use these methods in any larger scale everything goes straight to hell.
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- "Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.." - "Religions take everything that your DNA naturally wants to do to survive and pro-create and makes it wrong." - "There is only one absolute truth and that is that there is only one absolute truth." |
02-24-2005, 01:52 AM | #6 (permalink) |
Jarhead
Location: Colorado
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If the only thing we are good at doing is killing one another, then there would be no humans.
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If there exists anything mightier than destiny, then it is the courage to face destiny unflinchingly. -Geibel Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else. -Marcus Aurelius Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever? -GySgt. Daniel J. "Dan" Daly |
02-24-2005, 05:29 AM | #8 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: Austin, TX
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The idea that the only thing humans are good at is killing each other is impressively misguided. I really don't know where to begin.
Perhaps you are talking about war or violent crime? I would guess that the numbers of deaths caused by other human beings has gone dramatically down in relation to proportional global populations in the past several hundred years. In other words, comparatively speaking, now is good/better than before. So celebrate. |
02-24-2005, 05:30 AM | #9 (permalink) |
pinche vato
Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton
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I'm damned good at killing ants, and my cats are highly skilled at killing moths. In Alabama, I've noticed a lot of people who are very effective at killing deer, turkeys, and fish, too.
The leather in my shoes, belt, and wallet, and the chicken still digesting in my tummy suggest that at least some of us are quite skilled at killing cows and chickens, as well. Since my chicken was cooked with pineapple, red peppers, and brown sugar, this seems to suggest that nobody can slaughter a plant quite like humans, either. On the whole, I'd say that humans are at the tip top when it comes to killing pretty much anything we want to. But I still don't trust my cats.
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Living is easy with eyes closed. |
02-24-2005, 05:32 AM | #10 (permalink) | |
Crazy
Location: Austin, TX
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Then again, I am an econ major, so I tend to see things in that light. |
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02-24-2005, 05:34 AM | #11 (permalink) |
Illusionary
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Humans , as individuals, are relatively benign creatures.....and most have little skill in the art of murder. It would seem the change in Human "Nature" takes place in Socialization/Civilization, and the inevitable growth of needed control that comes with it.
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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha |
02-24-2005, 05:42 AM | #12 (permalink) | |
pinche vato
Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton
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But "ignoring" does not equal "eradicating." And thank God for small favors. If we eliminated those anti-social behaviors that sometimes threaten society, mankind would stagnate and become extinct rather quickly. Nature has always taught us that stirring the pot is necessary for survival. Sometimes murder makes me sad, and sometimes I'm able to look away without giving it a second thought. Quite literally, it is the nature of the beast.
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Living is easy with eyes closed. |
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02-24-2005, 05:59 AM | #13 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: Central Wisconsin
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I think there are a lot of creatures that are ''self organizing'', look at animals storing or fattening up for winters, or creating dens. The difference may be in our ability to reason, greedand the fact that we are the only species that uses sex as a ''weapon'' or control, rather than only for pleasure or reproduction.
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If you've ever felt there was a reason to be afraid of the dark, you were right. |
02-24-2005, 06:13 AM | #14 (permalink) |
Addict
Location: Australia
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i see what all you guys are saying and you all have different points but maybe you should know the reasoning/throught process that led to this idea of mine.
it started when our all unknowledgeable leader john 'lil johnny' howard decided to send another couple of hundred troops over to iraq after promising not to during the last election. so anyway i was stewing over this some and then i started thinking about leukemia (i do a fund raising thing for it each year about this time) and while thinking about this i wondered why we couldnt cure this disease and many others. one of the reasonings that we couldnt is because so much money is going into pointless trivial exercises like wars and conquests and killing other human beings instead of trying to save many 10s of thousands of lives from many diseases, which if the researchers and scientists had the sought of money spent on wars etc could find cures and preventions for a lot sooner. so anyway, this line of thinking lead to move above statement in the opening post that we, as humans in a socialization/civilization (to use tecoyah's words) are only good a killing each other. ok i know all this may be a bit confusing (sorry it is hard to get the thought process down on paper) but i thought id share and see what you guys had to say.
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A stranger is just a friend you havent met yet. Impostor of the imposturous |
02-24-2005, 06:48 AM | #15 (permalink) | |
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02-24-2005, 06:50 AM | #16 (permalink) | |
pinche vato
Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton
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Also, my male cat asserts his dominance over our two female cats daily, thereby using sex as control. All of them are neutered and no actual sex takes place (therefore, no pleasure or reproduction), but even fixed male cats still have an instinct to whip the ladies in line, and that goes back to self-organizing behavior.
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Living is easy with eyes closed. |
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02-24-2005, 07:10 AM | #17 (permalink) |
Tilted
Location: reno,nv
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I would just like to add a couple of things....
Humans (to my knowledge) are the only animals to regularly drink another animals milk (what's up with that??) I believe that, although retsuki03 point about fighting over resources may be true to a small extent, the ultimate fight seems to origininate from 2 motives: Power and God. Those who have no power want it: those that have power impose it: and of course everyone knows that some people believe that their own religious beliefs are the only true beliefs and that everything else is blasphemy or satan and must be eliminated just my 2 cents kevin
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And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all. - Socrates (469 BC - 399 BC) |
02-24-2005, 07:20 AM | #18 (permalink) |
My future is coming on
Moderator Emeritus
Location: east of the sun and west of the moon
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Humans are good at surviving and reproducing. We're also pretty good at removing most obstacles to those two goals. Hence the killing, the massive consumption of resources, etc. What we're NOT good at is maximizing self interest, both in the medium term (our lifetimes) and in the long term (thinking about the impact of our actions on other generations). We are pretty good at taking care of our short-term interests, but don't always see how what apears to be good for us right now is not necessarily what's best in the long run.
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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France |
02-24-2005, 07:29 AM | #19 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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there is no human nature.
there are rationalities, rules of social comportment, that create types of response to types of situations. if a result of the internalization of a social arrangement, of the rules that enable people to operate within that arrangement, is that actors become adept at murder, at imagining murder, at imagining that others are adept at murder. then the problem is the social situation. individuals are adept at normalizing almost any social arrangement they have to do so in order to function. what they do not like about the results they call human nature. it is a way of dodging individual and political responsibility.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
02-24-2005, 09:37 AM | #20 (permalink) | |
pinche vato
Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton
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I would qualify it and say that humans drink another mammal's milk because we CAN; if other animals could regularly get cow's milk, they would, too.
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Living is easy with eyes closed. |
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02-24-2005, 03:07 PM | #21 (permalink) |
Born-Again New Guy
Location: Unfound.
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As animals, we feel the inherent need to thrive and spread. However, as humans we recognize death, the only animal that does so. (Supposedly. If there are other sentient animals out there, I'll gladly put my theory aside since no other animal seems to act as we do when it comes to killing.) Where other animals kill one another for present need, we recognize that we can end another animal's life "early," for future need. It's an advantage we have over less developed animals. It's also, unfortunately a trait that very possibly leads us to believe that death or harm of an "opponent" is the preferable method of resolution.
There's also the idea of life credit. If it interests you, there's a section in White Noise by Don Delillo about it. But in sum: by killing the other guy, he cannot kill you. It's like trying to cure death by becoming it, like buying life by taking it. It's not a perfect answer, but maybe it charts the subconscious reasoning that lead to why a person kills. That is, the fear of their own death. However, I'd like to think that we (humanity as a whole) will move out of the part of the genetic pool that is so deeply tied to the animalistic urge to kill and/or maim in order to gain dominance. I hope that it isn't that far off, there have certainly been people who show every sign of not being tied to such animalistic urges. And we are, after all, the most mentally developed animals on earth right now. |
02-25-2005, 05:12 AM | #22 (permalink) | |
pinche vato
Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton
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Living is easy with eyes closed. |
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02-25-2005, 12:20 PM | #24 (permalink) | |
Crazy
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We do more than kill eachother. And even then, we are better at killing eachother than any other species. Sadly we are getting dammn efficant at our art of genecide. But look at the upside. There is more to life than the killing and the slaughter. There is the laugh of a child.
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And so its over Your fantasy life is finally at an end And the world above is still a brutal place And the story will start again |
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02-25-2005, 12:58 PM | #25 (permalink) | ||
Getting Medieval on your ass
Location: 13th century Europe
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02-25-2005, 01:46 PM | #26 (permalink) | |
Born-Again New Guy
Location: Unfound.
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02-27-2005, 02:08 PM | #27 (permalink) | |
Crazy
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
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And now time for the perfectly relevant Douglas Adams quote from one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books.
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03-10-2005, 04:27 AM | #28 (permalink) |
Guest
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i don't think we're necessarily smarter, it depends on your difinition of "smart". people seem to think that smart means good grades in school, or a high ranking profession; but the irony is that it takes a really stupid person to think that makes a person smart. intelligence is resillience, creative problem solving, quick wit - not knowledge. you could have all the knoweledge in the world, but that doesn't mean you could even process it, or offer any insight. animals are much smarter than we give them credit for, but humans definitely stand out among the rest of nature in that they are capable of materialistic thinking.
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